Cranberry library celebrating 45th anniversary

April 13, 2018Cranberry Breaking News

CRANBERRY TWP — The library’s ability to keep up with an ever-changing world was celebrated at the township manager’s coffee and conversation meeting Wednesday night as the facility marked its 45th anniversary.

“The library is very important to Cranberry Township,” said Jerry Andree, township manager. “It adds to our quality of life.”

Last year, the library had 169,391 in-person visitors, said Leslie Pallotta, library director. That’s about 540 people a day.

“We’re constantly evolving and changing to keep up with this community,” Pallotta said as the library also marked National Library Week, running this week through Saturday.

One change is the move toward technology, although Pallotta assured residents that traditional paper books were here to stay.

The library loans out electronic books for two weeks just like its traditional materials. People can download them on their smart phones, Kindles, Nooks or other e-readers. Of the 274,574 items checked out last year, 9,288 were eBooks or audio books, Pallotta said.

She said they’ll likely be getting rid of the print reference section soon, because it is hard to keep updated and almost all the material can be found in an electronic database. There were 14,917 database searches in the library last year.